Showing posts with label good times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good times. Show all posts

Friday, February 18, 2011

Dead presidents, frozen cavemen, and frozen coke

I'm excited about this weekend because a friend of mine that I've known since 8th grade (!) is coming to see me.  I don't think I've seen her in about eight or nine years, but I have no doubt we'll pick up right where we left off.  To quote what she wrote about her upcoming visit on her blog,

"we're planning to re-visit 8th grade, which means lots of frozen coke, popcorn, face cream, nail polish, and of course watching our favorite movie from that time, Encino Man. We'll probably use phrases you won't remember like "Owwwww Buddddy" and "Weeze the Jui-uice."

Well said, April!  And then she posted an 8th grade picture.  I won't do that.  I'll just post this senior year pic instead:


In other news, my dad complained that I was including too much "contemporary poetry crap" on here, so here's an oldie but a goodie (just like you, Dad).

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Today's poem brought to you by wine

You thought I was going to be drunk when I wrote this, right?  Well, I'm not (yet).  Thanks to @pxie, I was alerted to a contest in which a Napa winery called Poem Cellars has issued a call for poetry submissions.  Apparently, they include a haiku or a limerick on every cork of their bottled wine that goes out.  Until February 5th they will be taking submissions for their 2009 Napa Valley Red Wine.  The two poets chosen will receive a case of wine!  Go here for more details and to submit.

Of course I couldn't back down from the challenge due to the free wine and all.  Here are a few entries I submitted.  I dare say a glass of wine might have made an improvement.

Let us open a bottle of wine
and toast to the birth and decline
of relationships past,
present, future, and last
'til we no longer walk a straight line.

Here's to the vineyard
and the grapes she produced;
here's to the winery
for improving the juice.

And this one I just plain ripped off of Neil Diamond:

Sweet glass of wine,
good times never seemed
this good.

Hmm . . .  maybe I am drunk.